A way to pass the time.
Later on two hours of work, Daria got the space station's recycler back online without Hugh there to help her. If he had just waited ten minutes while she tried resetting power. If he had let her double-check his gear earlier his spacewalk, similar he was supposed to according to all the protocols.
Analogy by Jacey
If. If. If.
Now her merely brother was drifting away from Station Mars One, a fragile floating bubble in the void. He brought to mind the time Daria packed her goldfish in the front seat for the drive to college. Glass bowl swathed in chimera wrap swathed in a coating, set in a flimsy taped-up cardboard box. The thinnest sliver of shelter against a sudden cease.
She pressed both palms into her eyeballs until stars blossomed, and with nifty effort, focused on her last obligation: to continue him company until he died.
The intercom crackled to life. "Your turn, Daria," said Hugh. He sounded weary, only in practiced spirits. Like they were still parked together with their due east-readers in the command room, passing the long, irksome hours caretaking the station until their half-dozen-month stint ended, and the relief shuttle arrived.
"The Martian Chronicles Ray Bradbury," she said later on some idea. "Non-fiction. An alien visits Globe to write the definitive intergalactic biography of the scientific discipline-fiction master." Hugh had taught her to play this game. You mashed up a novel title with its author, then invented a short synopsis.
"Ha. Not bad." He hummed to himself. "How about ... Harlan Ellison's Watching Harlan Ellison? Comedy. Harlan'south newest habit is a reality TV series starring himself."
Iv unbroken hours of this, and Hugh could still pull a express joy from her. "Lock In John Scalzi," Daria shot back. "Offense. The world's best prison architects match wits with a Hugo-winning escape artist who slips out of all restraints."
"Ha. Pretty good. But I said that i an hour agone," said Hugh. "Think of something dissimilar."
"Deplorable. I suck at this game."
He snorted, a audio like tumbling pebbles over the radio. "You have the eastward-reader. No excuses. Just browse the index until yous encounter something expert." He paused. She could hear him animate, in and out, irksome and rhythmic. "Not like I'd catch you doing it."
"I'm not going to cheat, Hugh." Daria believed in following the rules, even if it didn't matter much anymore. She tried to speak, to tell another joke, but she looked out the window and saw him out there in the altitude, his adjust reflecting sunlight, and her vocalism hitched.
"Hey," Hugh said gently, or peradventure information technology was just the radio point dying. "Hey, I'm sorry, Daria. Sorry about rushing the repair this morning. About that prank I pulled with your suit last month. Sorry about ... well, all of information technology. If I'd followed protocol, you lot'd have everything you need to rescue me, merely now, because of me —"
She didn't want him to say information technology, to make it real. "Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy John Joseph Adams. Erotica. A collection of science-fiction shorts starring a sexbot programmed to be the human of everyone's dreams."
Hugh'southward abdomen laugh sent feedback squealing over the line. "Hey, we didn't say we could use anthologies! Good one, sister! Except you should've used Gardner Dozois. He invented this game. That would be hilarious."
Daria let the ringing laughter wash over her, and did non allow herself to flinch away from the sharp pain of the feedback. She wanted that sound burned into her synapses. He was humanity itself, laughing into the abyss as he hung suspended in his ridiculous, wonderful, bubble-wrap accommodate, holding back the cold and dark, defeating the howling loneliness with the only weapon that ever worked.
"Hey, Daria? I'm getting tired," said Hugh. Six hours unmoored now. "But yous've only got two months until the relief crew gets here. That's non so bad. Yous'll pass the fourth dimension. You've got all those books."
Her resolve broke. Daria groped for her damaged spacewalk gear. Hugh had destabilized its joints when he turned it into a balloon for his birthday, but at least he wouldn't have to dice alone. "I'll come and get you. You're non that far away. Nosotros can make information technology work somehow."
"No." Information technology was so final, and then house. Her brother was never one to requite orders. "Can't risk it. Someone has to be in that location to wake the relief crew from stasis when their shuttle arrives. Otherwise you'll lose more than Mars's worst prankster."
"Two Sisters Gore Vidal," she began. "Information technology's most — nearly minotaurs —"
"I love you, okay?" His voice was definitely fainter. From weakness or distance, she couldn't say. Out the window, his body was simply a suggestion confronting the bright dome of Mars, a discussion on the tip of the tongue.
"Remake Connie Willis!" she shouted. "Feed Mira Grant! The Sky That Laps Jay Lake!"
Daria called out into the void for a long time, shouting for her other half like a title missing its writer, because without it, nothing made any sense. Footnote one
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Jones, R. Houston, Houston, Practise You Read James Tiptree?. Nature 537, 578 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/537578a
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DOI : https://doi.org/x.1038/537578a
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Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/537578a
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